Our Faithful Predicament
by Rubyredribbons
Summary: Link and Zelda had always been intertwined with one another. Grown up together, ate together, loved together. That was the way it was, and the way it was meant to be. Not even death could interfere with that. Modern day oneshot!


She sits on the blackened pavement, her arms crossed and skinny legs stretched out, moss coloured eyes wide. The ghost of a smile hints her pale face, skin shimmering as moonlight lights up her features. This girls breath puffs out as a small white cloud in front of her face, the only evidence that she is a living, breathing being. Passerbyers just tut in discontent; to them, she's just another street dweller, a washed up nobody with a possible drinking or drug issue by the wild look in her eyes. A nobody.

But their wrong. I know better.

To someone, she meant the world; she was that persons "somebody". The girl who sat down in the middle of scruffy suburban streets with ripped clothes was my somebody. She lit up my whole world, much like the sun lights up the lifeless vacuum of space. She's the face I hope to see, the voice I want to hear. I sigh. I'm in it deep, aren't I? My eyes wander over to her spot on the pavement, where she still wears the vacant smile. She's not the girl I love; she's just her shell. Her spirit is gone. Although I feel bursts of anger at the civilians who look upon her as dirt, I just can't blame them. She smells of liquor. She looks intoxicated and delusional. During the daytime, families pull their offsprings closer to them as they go past her. But, if I had children, I'd guide them across the road too, away from the drunk and potentially dangerous woman.

She wasnt always this way, you know.

When I first met Zelda Harkarian, we were 6. She wasnt the typical little girl who played with pretty Barbie dolls and put ribbons in her hair. I chuckle at the thought of it. She was small, had yellow-blond hair that planted itself in tuffs all over her head and had an intense hatred of all things pink. Seriously. She actually scared me on the first day in year 2. My 6-year-old self was happily colouring a dinosaur or dog in a colouring book, carelessly ruining the nibs on the expensive felt tip pens that the school owned. Zelda thrown a cardboard sword at my head.

Yes. You have heard me correctly. A cardboard sword.

And the way I cried, you'd of thought it was a real one. Zelda was in the middle of describing a extravagant sword battle between her and the head pirate to her audience which was the class, complete with the actions, when the sword flew out of her hand. I can still remember this day in so much detail and can skim every single one off the top of my head. She had grumbled her way over to me, pushed along by an annoyed teacher, to say sorry. I had timidly smiled at her, and she smiled back, her two front teeth missing. It was unspoken, but after that day, we became unlikely allies.

26-year-old Zelda leans over and throws up all over the sidewalk, her tiny frame shuddering. I so want to go over and comfort her; rub her back and throw her arm over my shoulder and guide her home, where she's safe, away from the world full of cruelties and heartache. No one passing by helps her. Why should they? Shes worthless to them.

After the fake sword day, we were inseparable. When we were 10, we decided to build a treehouse. How cheesy. We decided it would be our new home; that way, when either of us argued with our parents and did the 'im running away'  
thing, we could live in our tree and eat nuts, like the squirrels did. Construction started (and by construction, I mean a rope tied to a branch with a slab of wood underneath it) and we claimed we'd made the infamous treehouse. As Zelda climbed the precarious branches, I dragged myself up the rope. "Hey! Watch this!" she had yelled to me, as she stood up on a particularly thin branch. "Zelda," I began, "Zelda! you might not wanna do tha" I couldn't even finish my sentence as the rip of a branch leapt through the air and she went plummeting to the ground. I smile at my panic that day; she broke her leg from the fall, and I was about as much use as a stick of brocoli. While we were in a room waiting for the doctor, her mum had gone to the coffee machine and she had looked at me in a peculiar way. "Whats up, Zellie?" i had asked earnestly. She screwed up her mouth before saying, with her eyes focusing on the floor, "Do you promise you'll my friend forever? Even if i break two legs?" I had replied without even hesitating. "Of course, stupid. I pinky promise" She had looked up at me and slid her hand over to mine, hooking her pinky around my own.

The cold is starting to creep over her body now. She rolls away from her puddle of vomit and shivers, tiny goosebumps forming over her skin. She rubs her hands up and down her arms, trying to create friction to generate a warmth in the bitterness of the night air. I still watch her. I can't go over. Even though ever fibre of my body is screaming at me to protect her, to make her feel warm again, I just can't...

We went to the same highschool and I was glad for it. Zelda changed those first few years, and so did I. Other people began to notice us and we began to drift apart. Zel was with a popular boy or girl, I was with a group of social outcasts in the library. I never stopped looking out for her though. Even when she avoided looking at me in the corridors, left me sitting on my own at lunch, I still remembered the days when we were small. The pinky promise I made in the hospital room.  
Even if it seemed like a childish, pointless thing to hold on to and cherish, I did. Perhaps because i knew i had lost her in highschool to the people of high social status, and that was the old Zelda that i had pinky promised too that day.

One day, a particular party at some guys house was going around school. The whole, bring beer, bring people, type of thing.  
I was never one for it. Zelda attended everyone's parties; she was the life of them, according to various people.  
It was probably true. Zelda had the talent to lighten any black mood, capture any audience. One of my friends, a small guy classed as a "nerd" was famously invited. My friend group was ecstatic at this revelation; we weren't the type to be invited to the party's of the world. I was forced into going. Trust me, I was against it. But, I was glad I did go by the end of the night. The house was huge and almost wrecked when we arrived; people scattered themselves all over the place, drinking alcohol and kissing in corners. If i have to admit it, I felt extremely socially awkward that night. I was ready to go home; just leave in embarrassment and pretend I never went. But then I seen her.

The same fair hair running down her back, bouncing around her face in ringlets, same innocent emerald orbs and cheeky smile. She stood in the kitchen, looking just as repulsed at the kissing people as I felt.. "Same old Zel, if she doesn't like this sort of thing..." I had mused, watching her. It was true that she was surrounded by hordes of people. Why wouldnt she be?

Then our eyes met.

She held my gaze for a minute before i broke off, because I could feel the heat in my cheeks and felt sure others could see it.  
I had turned round abruptly and headed for the door, quickening my pace. The air felt like pin pricks on my skin as I left the party, journeying home. It's easy to describe how messed up I felt at that moment; hurt, confusion, panic and another strange feeling swirled around in my stomach.  
Then I heard running behind me. Turning round, my eyes met the same green ones from before. I had become rooted to the spot; every muscle in my body refused to work. Yet, the ones in my face could, and I managed a small smile in her direction, like the one when we first met. "You ok?" she asked me,  
nervousness clear in her voice. I found that strange, since being nervous was never really a Zelda trait. "Yeah...are you?" my voice murmured back.

"Yeah...Can we walk together?...please?" she asked, eyes studying me carefully. "Sure" I was so perplexed at her actions; she joined my side and we went on in silence, when she suddenly grasped hold of my hand. I stopped, again, and looked at her curiously. She had sighed and locked her gaze at the floor. "I'm sorry..." I heard her mumble. "Theres no explanation for what I've done to you" I opened my mouth to speak but she hushed me. "I let you go and I was wrong. I lost myself in that gang of idiots and forgot who I was. I don't want all of this!" She gestured to herself manically, the curls shaking. "As much as it shames me to say it, I still hold some of my 10-year-old persona. And you made part of that..." she trails off, looking up at me. "I guess what I'm asking is...will you be my best friend again?" I wanted to laugh at that moment. It was like she was proposing to me.  
"Of course, stupid" I answered, wryly smiling at her. She mirrored me and we walked on. "Hey...is our treehouse still in your garden?"

Now the older Zellie is curled up in a fetal position on the floor, trembling. Miniscule flakes of snow begin to fall. A choking noise escapes her mouth and I look up,  
startled. But its a sob. Followed by another. Soon shes bawling, and people look at her with concern, the girl lay in her vomit, the girl having a breakdown in the street. I grit my teeth and root myself to the floor, like I did when we were 15 on the night of the party. I also mentally chastise myself for thinking to go over, as it wouldn't be any use to either of us.

Soon, after the party, we got to know each other again. When her friends would shout her over, she'd brush them off. I always told her to go with them,  
but she simply wouldn't. "There still your friends" I'd tell her. "Not as much as you are" She'd answer. Zelda was a smart girl. Is, a smart girl. She excelled in every subject she took, although her favourites were art and english. "Books are very important"  
was her catchphrase. "They let people escape into fictional worlds which are more than likely better than their reality." I still couldn't agree more with her. On free afternoons, we'd run round to each others houses and spend hours pouring over books, discussing our favourites, arguing over ones one liked and one disliked. Zelda was in love with the idea of being an author. She was due to go away for university in a couple of months from then. We decided that one day, we'd write our own book. About us. "We'll make sure we describe me as taller though" she laughed, still a little munchkin.

She hated me calling her that. :)

When she got mad she'd throw pillows at me, which would end up in a vicious pillow wars. We went on like that for a long time. It was like we had never gone through a period when we had no contact what so ever. In fact, we were still 10. One autumn day, we sat in Zellies bedroom, which was adorned with paintings and long sheets of writing stuck on the walls. They were her stories. She wrote in every spare hour she had, poured every emotion she felt into her work. She sat next to me, book on her lap and hair tied up into a straggly bun with stray hairs escaping. I was feeling something towards Zel that day, yet I wouldn't know what it was until later.

I stared at her for a long time, drinking in every one of her features; the long, slim nose and the arched eyebrows. Long lashes that dressed up her eyes. I looked for too long though, because she noticed. Her mouth curved into that smile and she raised one of her brows. "What you lookin at?" she asked teasingly. I didn't know the words were out of my mouth until it was too late. "Just you. Your eyes are beautiful" I had mentally slapped myself and immediately stared at something else, like the door. We locked into a strange silence for about a minute when she broke it. "I'm glad you think so." She poked my arm and I snapped my gaze up at her. Something was swimming about in her eyes and I couldn't name what it was, because her gaze bore into my own.  
My own hand crawled towards hers and she jumped as my fingers grazed her skin. My mind was screaming at me to stop it NOW, that what I was doing was weird and I needed to get a hold of myself.  
But I couldn't, and like a moth to a light, my lips met hers.

The feel of kissing her will be forever etched into my memory. It was strange, since I'd never kissed a girl before and I just kissed Zelda at that moment, like it was nothing. I felt a strange tremor in my stomach, like little people were using my insides as trampolines (sorry for the visual image) and I felt sparks in my entire being. It was like an electric current being pumped through my body and it left me feeling thrilled and elated. Her lips were soft, just like I thought they'd be. My hand reached up and cupped one side of her face while the other winded its fingers in the fair tendrils of silk that was her hair. It was the most euphoric thing I'd ever felt in my life. When she pulled away from me, her cheeks were shaded a light pink and her eyes were wider than before. We were both breathless and she suddenly chuckled, fell against my chest and wrapped her arms around me. Her laughter is annoyingly infectious, and I was soon dragged into laughing at whatever she found so funny. "I'm...so glad...that just happened" she giggled happily, moving around in my arms. I couldn't help but smile more and pulled her into my chest.

Even though I'd never had any experience what so ever with any girl, It felt right to hold her. So that's exactly what I did.

Her sobs have ceased now. I think she might have passed out. I let out another sigh, my sadness reflected in it as I watch her sleeping figure. I can't help but grieve for the girl who used to live. Now she's only walking this earth on autopilot, lost in a dark chasm of ostracization and depression...

The day before Zelda went to university, I wanted to take her out somewhere. I decided on a tiny café that we went to when we were younger and haven't been to since. She wore no makeup, her hair wasnt done, and I never thought she could look any more beautiful. I had preferred the tomboy Zel to the Zel who I seen at the party, although she was still gorgeous either way. We walked along the streets, crisp leaves flying about our ankles. I held her little hand in mine and waded through the sea of golden hues,  
occasionally kicking a few leaves in her direction. She kicked them back and we ended up having a leaf war, much to the disbelief of passerbyers. Her laughter that day reminded me of a birdsong; high yet gentle and sweet. Almost melodic. We reached the café and like the typical loved up couple, held each others hands across the table and stared into one another's eyes happily. I bet your gagging while you hear this, arent you? "Come here, munchkin" I murmured, reaching over to clasp a leaf that stuck in her hair. "Dont call me munchkin!" she laughed, swatting me away. We carried on like this all night. I held her in my arms while she slept that evening, listening to the sound of her breathing rhythmically. We were perfect in that moment...we didnt even anticipate what was almost upon us...

I knead my eyes with my fists at the torture of not being able to help her but there are no tears I'm able to shed. I can't produce tears anymore, can I? I stare at the ground aimlessly as a hollow feeling in my chest spreads.

We were both up extra early the morning of her departure to university. I helped her gather her things she'd need, taken all her stories off the walls and a few of her paintings. It was so odd to see her room looking so bare, without her own personal signature. After a few teary goodbyes to her family, we were in the car, ready to take her to her new life.

I felt weird that day. I should have knew something was wrong. Maybe I just put it down to her going away. But nobody ever anticipates disaster, do they?

She stared out the window at the passing country side, possibly noticing how far she actually going away from her home. Away from me. It was selfish of me to think like that but a day without her was unbearable...how was I going to put up for a couple of years? I looked her way and gave her a reassuring smile, like the ones we'd shared over the past, the ones that meant so much but said so little. She returned it warily and sighed, slumping back into her chair. "Your going to be ok. I know you are." I told her, stealing glances at her every now and then. "I know but...I'm going to miss you" she had replied, in a small voice that broke my heart.  
"You need to do this. Its your future. You can't waste this opportunity and I'm not going to get in the way of it, stupid." I used our nickname to try to make her feel better, but it had the opposite effect. She crumbled and silent tears ran down her face. I turned for one second. It wasnt even that. It was a millisecond, that i took my eyes of that grey stretch of road, to comfort her.

I guess that's all it takes.

All I had time to register was the oncoming car skidding in our direction before everything had turned black.

I watch Zelda well into the night, up until the sky becomes stained with daybreak. She still has scars from that crash. Long, silver scars snaking around her forearms from the chunk of metal that had embedded itself into her skin. I think back to when she was in the hospital room by my side; I can still hear her hysterical voice, confined to the deepest crevices of my mind but still louder than anything I've ever heard...

"Link! Wake up! Please..."

I tried to wake up for her, I really did.

That horrible, stupid, accident that was my fault. I've damaged her psychological scar tissue beyond repair and her physical one too.  
What kind of boyfriend was I? I should have known better than to take my eyes off that stupid road. I want to cry, to sob, to get rid of this heart devouring feeling that's hanging over me like a black cloud, but I can't. I know it will be with me forever.

Because I've destroyed her. She blames herself like I blame my self. I guess that's just the average hylian thought process.

She dropped the university, fell into drinking. Then drugs. I was powerless to stop her as she fell into a massive abyss full of agony and dark flashbacks which I can't save her from. My misery converts itself to anger and I punch the wall beside me, only to have no sound emerge from the collision. If I had a heart left, it'd break more from seeing her like this. But it's long gone, I think. Corroded away from so much rage and despondency that there's nothing left for me to hold in my chest cavity.

Not like it matters.

I eventually give in. I need to see her more closely, even if she can't see me. I cross the road and knelt beside her sleeping form, avoiding her bile that stains the floor. I try to hold her hand, as we used to, but my fingers just can't grasp anything anymore. I'd love to be able to feel her skin again. Feel her long soft hair against the pads of my fingers. But i cant. So I just do what i do every night, which is wish and watch.

Wish that my Zelda would die, so she can escape the vicious circle of drugs and alcohol that abuse her in every way possible. I'm not being selfish. She isn't living like she should be. Zelda should of moved on, should of been a writer, should of had a beautiful family. But she hasn't got any of those luxuries; the life she lives now and the thing I'm trapped in is our faithful predicament.

I wish she could join me.

But that's all a dead man can do. Wish.

Good? Bad? Constructive criticism appreciated :3 This is my first fanfiction so that's why I decided to go for a one-shot, to see if I could actually sit down and write for a sufficient time (Even though this oneshot is quite short)

Thankyou for reading:-)


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